Dr. Metablog

Awkward Question

I was at the old-age home (sorry, "retirement community") last week -- a place that gives me the creeps even though many of my friends and former colleagues seem to live there happily. (I'm on the waiting list but I hope that I'll never be constrained to move in.). I was there to eat lunch with an old friend. At the next table over (in the rather luxurious dining room) was a woman whom I knew slightly fifty years ago -- as a neighbor and as the mother of a Flatirons Elementary student. She's 89, a widow, and still healthy.

She (let's call her Ms. GK) initiated the conversation with this question. "Is your wife still alive?"  

It wasn't the inquiry itself that took me aback. It was the casual way in which it was asked, with no more emotional resonance than, say, "do you want raisins in your cereal?" or, "is it raining outside?"  

Which made me realize that Ms. GK --  and all her fellow denizens of the facility -- live in a world of "sole-survivors" where the deaths of spouses "were as plentie as Blackberries." Therefore, there is nothing noteworthy or remarkable for her to inquire about the status of a long time companion, especially when half of these husbands and wives have already kicked the old bucket.

Nevertheless, the lack of emotion, the cold bloodedness, the lack of euphemism, of Ms. GK's question produced in me a "take stock" moment. Whether in or out of the institution, hers is also my ninth-decade world.

But I do hope that I myself do not become quite so matter-of-fact about the death of friends and family.

Cemetery struck by fallen tree

I'm more or less reconciled to my anonymity. Just not a famous dude. Haven't been covered by newspapers or reporters in a generation or two. But now notoriety has struck again. 

Careful and diligent readers of this blague know that the old West Bradford graveyard -- a couple of acres of bumpy terrain -- abuts our Vermont property. And now they will learn that "our" cemetery has been featured in the Bradford Journal-Opinion (formerly the United Opinion).  Here's the story: 

The picture is of such poor quality that it's impossible to decipher. The story isn't that easy to read either so here's a transcription: 

Cemetery struck by fallen tree 

by Alex Nuti-deBiasi

BRADFORD--The Bradford Selectboard voted last week to spend $3500 to carefully clean up the West Bradford cemetery after a tree fell last week shattering limbs and possibly damaging headstones and gravesites.

"It looks like a bomb went off," Donnalyn Burgess Lyon told selectboard members at the meeting on August 24. I'm beside myself."

Lyon has several generations of family members buried at the bucolic cemetery located on Hackett Hill Road near South Road. She visited the cemetery to trim the grass and care for the gravesites.

A reporter who visited the cemetery ahead of last week's meeting did not see any damaged headstones, but at least one heavy limb rested on a stone.

Lyon told a reporter she visited the cemetery on a weekly basis to care for plots and trim the grass around stones until she broke her leg. Now she makes it every couple of weeks.

Board members said it appears that the tree was located on an abutter's property but that the town should spend the money to clean up the municipal property before pursuing reimbursement from the abutter. They solicited a quote from Thomson Logging for the clean up.

"We want it taken care of and not cause more damage," board chair Meroa Benjamin said.

Hey, we're newsworthy -- and a reporter is right there on the case. We're a little taken aback that Donnalyn's remark that "it looks like a bomb went off" was reported without comment.  A bomb didn't go off; a tree fell.

Moreover, we object to the story's headline: the cemetery wasn't struck by a fallen tree; it was struck by a "falling" tree. Once it's fallen it doesn't do any striking.  

For the record, the tree was a big tooth aspen, which folks around here call "popple." It was huge, and it was thoroughly rotten at the base --the wonder is "it hath endured so long." And also: the "abutter" has reimbursed the town for the cost of the cleanup.

The "bottlebrush buckeye"

As a youth, I spent many a happy hour in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. One of the plantings that I remember vividly was what I conceived of as a "wall" of bottlebrush buckeyes. It's been many a year, but what stands in my memory is roughly 40 or 50 linear feet of 20-foot-tall decorative shrubs in full flower.

So naturally, when I came to West Bradford, I tried to reproduce the effect. I just happened to have a perfect spot for a wall of buckeyes -- a fertile slope of the proper size and shape.  In 1980 (plus or minus a year or so) I purchased two plants from White Flower Farm in Connecticut and set them 30 feet apart, optimistically hoping that over the course of the years they would expanded to fill in the allotted space.  

It did not happen. One of the plants lingered for a year or so before giving up the ghost; the other stood still -- grew a bit, then died back over the winter. Our Zone 3 Vermont weather proved to be too harsh for a plant that had thrived in Zone 6 Brooklyn. I resigned my self to the fact that my experiment with the bottlebrush buckeye was a failure.

But then perhaps 10 years ago, after decades of stagnancy, the plant began to increase in size. Global warming?  Wetter summers? Maturity? I can't say. And then this past summer, after forty-plus years of doing nothing, the bottlebrush buckeye produced some flowers. And there they are -- long awaited and very welcome!

(The purplish plant in the background is Joe Pye weed, eutrochium purpureum, which thrives and multiplies without the least bit of assistance from me. And also a 20-year-old weeping willow and young Eastern cottonwood, which I set in place about 5 years ago.)

This past summer, dazzled that the buckeye produced its extravagant flowers at last, I gave it a few hours of care. Weeded it, pruned away the dead twigs, and gave it a small dose of fertilizer. I'm very curious to see what happens next summer. Could it be that my 40-year long experiment will succeed at last?

"At Home"

"And you're still at home," observed Mr. Henry, who had arrived to repair our on-the-fritz propane-powered clothes dryer. (Mr. Henry has been curating our appliances for a generation; he can diagnose a problem by a glance from several yards away, or perhaps he does it by magic. He's a kind of stove and refrigerator genius). 

"At home?" Mr. Henry had inquired about my age and I had confessed my longevity. "Confessed" is not exactly the right word. "Bragged," perhaps. I've reached the age when I don't mind if people ask about my years. I'm proud, I think, to have reached 84 and 5/12s still able to do a day's work -- when many of my friends and former colleagues have plummeted off the cliff or have moved to a "senior living" (formerly called "old age") residence.

But Mr. Henry's comment took me aback -- took me a few seconds to grasp. "Still at home?" Where else would I be? Ah, in an institution. 

I wonder about the difference between the 84-year-old person that Mr. Henry perceived and the 84 that I experience, internally, every day. To myself, I'm certainly not the geezer that I catch sight of in the mirror. Gray, paunchy, a trifle stooped. A bit unsteady on his feet. Even on my best days, I'm not as vigorous, even middle-age vigorous, as I once was. I tire easily and rest often. Work a bit, nap a bit. I no longer perform feats of strength, not only because my muscles have shrunk, but because I'm afraid of injuring my always-vulnerable back.  

I don't feel seventeen, but I feel myself to be myself. I'm competent. My brain, thanks be to all the gods and goddesses in the various pantheons, is still functioning well, though I'm troubled by "noun loss."  I know which plant is a delphinium and which a hyssop, but there are days when those nouns just disappear and can't be recalled. Same with the names of people. The recall system is as fragile as the dryer, but the storage system is working just fine (if I'm patient).  

I find that sometimes people who look only at my outside underestimate my abilities and give me credit and even praise for actions that I think of as routine. I find this phenomenon to be mildly insulting. It's no fun to exceed expectations when the expectations are so low.  At the same time, I know that the same activity that I can easily dispatch today, might be one that I won't be able to perform tomorrow. And yet I don't want to allow myself to be patronized or applauded for putting my pants on correctly, 

I no longer feel immortal. In fact, I feel mortality pressing in on me. I don't fear death, but I'm not ready for it.  I'm enjoying life far too much. How I would feel if my various twinges and aches turned into chronic pains I cannot say. But for today the watchword is, press on!